"I just saw him there," Clarke replied, "and he looked lonely, and I
walked up and said: 'How'd you like to have me read a little out of the
Book?'

"'Fine!' he said.

"Then I prayed with him, standing there at the crossroads, and I asked
him if he didn't want to pray. He was a church boy back home, and he
prayed as fine a prayer as ever I heard. Then we sang a hymn together.
It was 'Jesus, Lover of My Soul,' and neither of us can sing much, but
as I look back on it, it was the sweetest music that I ever had a part
in making. The only thing I didn't do was take up a collection.
Outside of that, it was just as if we had gone through a regular church
service at home. I even preached a little to him. No, not just
preached, but talked to him about the Master."

"Did you even go so far with your lone one-man congregation as to have
a benediction?" I asked him.

"No, I just said what was in my heart when we were through, 'God bless
and keep you, boy,' and went on."

"I never heard a finer benediction than that, old man," I replied with
feeling.

And the silhouette of that one Y. M. C. A. secretary holding a
religious service with a lone sentry of a Sunday evening, bringing back
to the lad's memory sacred things of home and church and the Christ,
giving him a new hold on the bigger, better things, bringing the Christ
out to him there on that road, that silhouette is mine to keep forever